Mike Stevens: Up On a Limb

Mike Stevens: Up On a Limb

The tree in the accompanying photo is not really a “pretty” tree. Beyond the fact that it grows thereby providing shelter for critters in the wild it has no major qualities to set it apart from a billion other trees of its nature. Well, maybe there is just one.

Take a close look at the limbs that have grown with no particular rhyme or reason from the main trunk. Do they resemble something of a ladder to you as they do to me? There it is, the hidden beauty of this old boy: he provides a rung up to a place called imagination, a land where anything is possible if you only wish it so.

The command center tower of the worlds biggest aircraft carrier, the Starship Enterprise going where no man has gone before, a speeding locomotive rocking back and forth as it roars down a straight track bound to set a new record. All that and more is possible when one lights the fire of imagination and sets it ablaze in the mind of someone for whom the whole world lies ahead. Ah, what an opportunity for anyone willing to begin the journey.

It occurs to me there are those who refuse to take the first step upward, who want to stay on the straight and narrow and ignore the possibilities imagination provides. That, of course, is their choice but I can’t imagine not doing it. This tree represents a perfect place to start, to climb up on sturdy branches as high as possible, to look out toward the horizon and a view never presented before. It’s a great view when you take the time to see it, to enjoy it then reach out toward it. Imagination is such a wonderful quality to have and an even better one to use.